Methodological Challenges in Consecutive Interpreting Research: Corpus Analysis of Notes

Consecutive interpretation (CI) entails the use of pen and paper to take notes of spoken discourse in one language followed by the transfer of the same information into another language some minutes later. The complex nature of interpreting, be it in the simultaneous, consecutive, dialogic or signed modes, renders analysis of the many processes involved an extremely complicated and challenging task. Technological innovation has provided researchers with numerous digital tools to collect data in the form of corpora composed of real-life interpretations which can be analysed with appropriate software to examine various linguistic and prosodic features. However, indecipherable hand-scribbled consecutive notes distinct for each trainee interpreter or professional practitioner in their cognitive construction and graphic form have continued to deter investigation because of the laborious, painstaking work involved to transcribe them. The invention of digital pen technology has led to a new dimension in note-taking (Orlando 2010, 2013, 2014). Based on three year’s experience teaching CI with the aid of digital pen technology that combines the video recording of CI notes with synchronized sound input, the author discusses some of the major challenges with regard to CI research methodology (note-taking in particular) and how today it is possible to rapidly collect a digital corpus of consecutive notes synchronized to the source language which helps decipher the notes more easily during transcription. By audio recording the interpreted target language (TL), the transcription of a parallel corpus can be made and aligned with the former in order to identify and analyze linguistic, semantic and pragmatic features of the interpretation for both didactic and research purposes. CI research with the aid of digital pens is promising though their full potential needs to be explored more extensively.